In the summer of 1791, a messenger clad in gray paid a visit to Mozart's flat and had a message for the composer. It was an offer to compose a Requiem Mass, a mass for the dead, for an unknown person. Mozart, who had been frail all his life, was deeply moved by this strange visit, but agreed to the commission. He needed the money.
For about three years running prior to this commission, Mozart was not quite as productive as he had been during the mid 1780s, at least by his standards. But 1791 saw a resurgence of his creative prowess, and things appeared to be looking up for Mozart. He had several commissions, including ones for two operas - La Clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflote, or The Magic Flute. Mozart also completed a Clarinet Concerto for his clarinettist friend Stadler.
In between working on these projects, Mozart worked on the Requiem, and related to his wife that he believed he was writing the work for himself. Watching death all around him, losing his mother in Paris when he was just 22, losing four of his six children in infancy, and losing his father in 1787, combined with countless illnesses of his own and his wife's, Mozart knew all too well first hand the frailty and and transient nature of life.
Still, Mozart pushed forward to complete the work, but was ultimately claimed by death's hand on December 5, 1791.
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